


Just Out Of His Reach

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Easter, Fluff, Food, Gay Bucky Barnes, Holidays, M/M, Sarah Rogers is Important, Synaesthesia, Synesthesia, but it's not, childhood stucky, matzo ball soup, the title makes this sound angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-09 23:31:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8917501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: The leaves rustle, and Bucky points upward. “That’s yellow.”“What is?” Steve’s draws back a little, perplexed; the sky is in that grey-purple post-sunset twilight. There’s nothing yellow above them; neither the stars nor the sun can be seen.“The leaves rustling. It’s yellow. I mean, kinda. Mostly, anyway.”“The… the leaves are green, Buck.”“I know! But their sound. It’s yellow.” He pauses. “In my head.” He gestures in front of his forehead. “These yellow patterns. Curved lines, an’ other stuff.”“You see a color for the leaves rustling?”“Yeah,” says Bucky. “I think I’ve always had it."“Does every sound have a color?” Steve asks. Another gust of wind blows his hair from his face, and he scoots closer to Bucky.Bucky pauses and thinks. “I think so, yeah. Weird, huh?”“I think it’s cool, actually,” says Steve, smiling. He kicks his heel into the dirt three times, in a rhythm.“What color is my voice?” he asks.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There might be a small trigger for implied parental abuse here. It's nothing worse than what happened to me, and I don't consider it abusive, but I see how some people could.
> 
> Synaesthesia (often spelled Synesthesia, without the first a) is a neurological condition where sounds make colors, and don't worry -- it's a lot less weird than it sounds. I have it myself, and all colors here are what I actually percieve the sounds to be.

**Brooklyn, Easter Sunday, circa 1925.**

Bucky and Steve are kicking each other’s feet under the yellow-brown wood of the Rogers family’s dining room table, their energy dancing palpably through the air. “Are you ready yet?” groans Steve, impatient to leave the house.

“Almost,” replies his mother, pinning on an amber brooch, a gift from Steve’s father back when they were courting. Another woman might have let the pin linger between her fingers sentimentally before consigning it a place in shirt fabric, but Sarah Rogers never stays in the past for long. “Almost ready, Steve.”

Bucky stabs forward with his left leg and hits Steve just above the ankle. “Gotcha!” he crows victoriously.

“No fair, Buck! I was distracted!”

Bucky makes a fake-sad face. “Oh, poor Stevie!”

“Don’t call me Stevie!” 

It’s a little petulant; Steve’s well aware he’s Bucky’s junior by a year, an amount of time that seems like quite a lot to him.

“If I wanna, I can! You-”

“Be nice, James,” sighs Sarah, fixing the last loose strand in her updo and lifting her potato salad off the tiny kitchen counter. “Today is a holiday.”

Bucky mutters something that’s probably something derogatory about Christians, but it’s clear he doesn’t mean it. He considers Sarah Rogers as a second mom to him, coming to her with his scraped knees and tears and whenever his biological parents are yelling at each other again. Sarah has, likewise, taken him in as nearly a second child -- almost against his will, she takes him to church with Steve about every other Sunday, and he eats dinner with them more often than not.

It’s not as if an extra mouth to feed most nights is free of financial consequences, but neither Sarah nor Steve can tolerate the idea of Bucky going back to his house all alone every night. They don’t know what goes on in there, but Sarah vividly remembers the time Bucky came sprinting towards their house one night, tears pouring down his face, with his hands cupped tightly around a bloody nose his dad had given him.

Since then, she’s been protective of the boy, which is why tonight, she urged him to clean himself up, brush his hair for once, and go with Steve and her to the Easter celebration at the Catholic church she’s been a member of since the week she arrived in America after emigrating from Ireland. Bucky pulled out his typical “You’re never gonna make a Catholic outta me” speal, but Sarah could see a tiny extra glow in his eyes and later heard him whispering to Steve excitedly about how he’s never been to a real party before.

He even got ahold of some Matzo Ball soup to bring to the communal dinner but refused to tell her how he got it from his mother. He seemed happy, though, giving it to Sarah, as if hoping it could provide some repayment for the immense kindnesses the Rogerses had shown him.

 

The light streaming in from the window is still yellow-gold. It’s late afternoon, Sarah’s favorite time of day, so she knows she still has time to get to the evening service. Her boys (she really does consider Bucky her child, doesn’t she) are impatient to get out the door, though, so she passes a quick comb through Steve’s flaxen hair and drapes her shawl over her shoulders. “Ready to go, Steve?” 

She pauses. “James?”

Bucky hesitates before getting up from the table. “You’re sure it’s ok for me to come?”

“Of course it is,” Sara replies warmly. She doesn’t go in for a hug; Bucky doesn’t like that, but she walks over and gives him a gentle pat on his small shoulder. “Get your soup and we’ll be going.”

Bucky gives a tiny nod, takes the bowl of Matzo Ball soup from the counter, and falls dutifully into place behind the Rogers’s.

They walk to the church, since it’s not that far. The evening service starts at six, so they have time. Bucky and Steve walk side-by-side for most of the walk, Bucky teasing Steve occasionally about how much shorter he is. Steve can see, though, that Bucky’s sad about something. When he presses, though, Bucky just turns away. “I’m fine,” he mutters. A tiny smile starts. “Steven Grant.”

“Don’t call me that!”

They bicker playfully for the rest of the walk and are still laughing when they approach and enter the church’s large brown doors. Sarah takes the children to the table, where she sets her potato salad near the edge of the banquet table and directs Bucky to do the same with his Matzo Ball soup. He shakes his head, though, walking instead to the middle of the table and defiantly placing the soup bowl just right of the daffodil centerpiece. Sarah smiles and shakes her head. “You are one unique kid, James.”

“It’s Bucky.”

Sarah doesn’t respond to that, instead planting a kiss on top of his head and telling the children to have fun as she turns into the crowd to find her friends.

“They’re beautiful flowers,” Steve remarks as the two boys stand there in front of the table of food. “Really bright yellow.”

Bucky nods. “Like a smile on a stalk.” He is looking at the spread of food, though, and he notices his stomach grumbling, creating a familiar hollow, rolling ache just below his ribs.

“Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a poetic mind, Barnes?”

“No, never.” He turns to Steve, surprised. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing. Just that what you said was pretty.”

“Aw, thanks.”

Bucky shifts left to look at more of the food. Much of the table is still bare, but each time a new churchgoer enters with a plate of food, a new platter is placed onto the table. “Do we really have to wait until after the service to eat?” Steve asks. Bucky doesn’t answer; he’s busy taking tiny surreptitious fragments of crust off the edge of a glistening lemon pie.

Shoving the crumbs into his pockets, he migrates further down the table. Steve stops him reaching for the edge of a chocolate brownie, though, instead pointing out a plate covered in an irregular stack of plums. “Why don’t you try that instead? They’re not gonna miss one. And take the one you touch.”

“You sound like my mom,” mutters Bucky. But he takes Steve’s advice, pulling a plum from the front of the stack as he walks toward the back of the church. His eyes aren’t even looking towards the table, and his hand-flicking gesture of taking the fruit is so fast Steve can almost believe it didn’t happen at all. But the plum lands in Bucky’s palm as if it’s found a home there; red-purple, ripe, and shining.

Bucky doesn’t even break his stride, taking the fruit and somehow tucking it halfway into his pocket so it looks like his hand is cupped near his hip but not hiding something. 

“Hey! Where’d you learn that?”

“Taught myself.” Bucky keeps walking back toward the side door of the church and veers into a corner of the room, the farthest away from where a steadily-growing group of people (and their noise) is congregating. He’s not smiling anymore, and his eyes are starting to dart from side to side.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“I-” Bucky spins in a circle and shoves himself backwards into the corner. “I can’t-”

“Bucky?”

Bucky closes his eyes. With all the people, the noise in the room is immense. The church isn’t large, and far more people than can really fit in it are milling around between the pews, the altar, and the table of food. Every single person is talking to three people at once, and then someone starts to play the organ, sending shockwaves of sound through the room that only seem to make the people speak  _ louder _ .

“Steve,” Bucky says. His voice is soft and he reaches for Steve’s wrist, clasping it tightly. “Steve, can we please get out of here?”

“Why, Buck?” Steve isn’t a fan of church services either, but he knows they mean a lot to his mom, and the Easter service, judging by the organ music, is starting soon.

“It’s…” Bucky places his hands over his ears and scrunches back into the wooden paneling on the wall. “It’s too loud. It’s all… colors. In my head.” He tucks his chin into the collar of his shirt and closes his eyes, shutting down.

“Huh?” 

Steve’s confused but Bucky’s distressed and clearly not functioning; he’s just pressing himself against the corner of the room with his hands pressed so tightly over his ears his they’re starting to turn white at the knuckles. So Steve gently takes him by the arm and leads him out the side door, hoping against hope his mom won’t notice them leaving. Bucky’s legs move mechanically and he stumbles out behind Steve, groaning faintly.

It’s only when they’re several feet away from the church and almost to the hill behind it that Bucky peels his palms from his ears. 

“Are you okay?” Steve’s deeply concerned.

“I’m fine.” Bucky stabs his toe into the ground, kicking at a clod of grass until he uproots it. 

“You’re sure?”

“I’m  _ fine _ .” Bucky turns his destructive attention to another clump of grass.

“But-”

“Hey,” he says, cutting Steve off and forcing a smile, “Race you to the top of the hill!”

“No!” 

Steve know’s he’ll lose, but when Bucky starts sprinting, he follows. Still, despite Bucky’s ploy, his reaction to the noise in the church stays in Steve’s mind. When he reaches the top of the hill, panting heavily, he reaches again for Bucky’s hand. “You looked sick,” he says, for lack of a better word. “Back there. Are you-”

Bucky almost starts the I’m Fines again, but, for some reason, stops. Steve’s looking up at him so earnestly, so innocently, that he’s sure he won’t laugh at him.

He sits down at the base of the maple tree growing atop the hill and jerks his chin towards the space next to him. Steve sits and looks up at his friend, waiting for him to speak.

It takes a while, but finally, he does. 

“I don’t like loud stuff,” he says quietly. “An’ in there, it was loud. And close. The sound was,” he waves his hand in a zigzag, “All aroun’ me. It made the inside of my mind go,” he gestures with his hands in vague circles around his ears, “All colorful.”

He drops his arms to his sides. “Please don’t laugh at me.”

Steve shakes his head, hard. “Of course I won’t laugh at you! You’re my friend!”

He scoots closer to Bucky, letting their shoulders touch to share their body warmth. The evening is growing chilly, and the wind blows around both of them, cutting through their cheap cotton shirts. The leaves rustle, and Bucky points upward. “That’s yellow.”

“What is?” Steve’s draws back a little, perplexed; the sky is in that grey-purple post-sunset twilight. There’s nothing yellow above them; neither the stars nor the sun can be seen.

“The leaves rustling. It’s yellow. I mean, kinda. Mostly, anyway.”

“The… the leaves are green, Buck.”

“I know! But their sound. It’s yellow.” He pauses. “In my head.” 

He gestures in front of his forehead. “These yellow patterns. Curved lines, an’ other stuff.”

“You see a color for the leaves rustling?”

“Yeah,” says Bucky. “I think I’ve always had it. An’ all the sounds in the room were making the inside of my mind go weird. It was too loud, like it was attacking me. All the people talking and the colors are just,” he puts his hands up to his face and shakes his head back and forth. “Too much. Grey and black and orange. Red.”

“Does every sound have a color?” Steve asks. Another gust of wind blows his hair from his face, and he scoots closer to Bucky.

Bucky pauses and thinks. “I think so, yeah. Weird, huh?”

“I think it’s cool, actually,” says Steve, smiling. He kicks his heel into the dirt three times, in a rhythm.

“What color is my voice?” he asks.

Bucky closes his eyes for a moment. “Say anything,” he says. “I’ve thought about it before, and I think it’s brownish-grey, like a dove or something, but I’m not sure.”

Immediately, upon being told to talk, all the thoughts leave Steve’s mind. “Uh,” he stutters. “Um, my name is Steve. Bucky is my best friend. It’s Easter. Uh….”

Bucky breaks into a smile, the largest Steve has seen all day. “I’m really your best friend, Stevie?”

“Don’t call me that!” 

“And why shouldn’t I?” Bucky laughs, reaching over to ruffle Steve’s hair. Steve pulls away. “Don’t do that, James Byoo-can-an!”

“Don’t call me that!”

“So you know how it feels!”

Bucky can’t be mad, so he laughs towards the sky and falls flat on his back in the grass. “Alright. I promise not to call you Stevie if you won’t call me James Buchanan ever again. And I mean  _ ever _ again.”

Steve lies back next to him. “Deal.”

“We’ve gotta seal it, then!” Bucky grins cheerfully. Steve makes a disgusted face. “No! Mom says I’ll get sick!”

Bucky scoffs. “Of course not! It’s just a little spit.” He sits up, spits a glob into his palm, and holds it out to Steve like an offering. Steve eyes the hand like he eyes boiled cabbage -- a gaze full of deep suspicion. 

“C’mon, Steve!” Bucky urges. “It’s the rule!” He pauses. “What? You wanna seal it with a kiss instead? ’Cuz that’s the other option, y’know!”

Steve gives a tiny smile, sighs, and spits into his own hand, shaking with Bucky. Bucky holds Steve’s hand a second longer than necessary and then drops his hand back to his side, looking oddly triumphant.

“What?” Steve asks.

“I had kings the whole time!” Bucky bursts out, exulting and shoving his right hand toward Steve. His first two fingers are crossed. “Now I get to call you Stevie whenever I want!”

“No!” Steve laughs, reaching with both hands for Bucky’s hand to pull his crossed fingers apart. “No! Mom said King’s Excuse doesn’t count!”

“But  _ my _ mom never said that!”

“Bucky!”

Bucky doubles over laughing and Steve can’t help but join in. They fall backwards onto the grass again and tussle. Bucky keeps his two fingers crossed and Steve keeps trying desperately and failing to wrench them apart. “Bucky, stop!” he laughs, out of breath from the play-fighting. “Stop, stop!”

They roll apart, still giggling. The night is cold but they’re both flushed, with grubby shirts and faces. The stars are bright above, despite the light from the church. Organ music and conversations from the church flow towards them, riding comfortably on the night wind. Bucky exhales deeply and picks himself up, brushing his shirt and trying to get as much dirt out of the cotton as he can. “My mom is going to kill me.  _ Your _ mom is going to kill me.”

Steve looks down at his own shirt and grimaces. There’s dirt and dust smeared all over his, too. “And it’s Easter, too,” he groans.

“Well,” says Bucky, immediately brightening up, “At least she hasn’t noticed we’re out here yet!”

Steve grins. “For now!”

“A bit of yellow,” Bucky says, thoughtfully. “Especially when you laugh.” His eyes are closed again.

“Yellow?” It takes Steve a second to recall. “You mean my voice?”

“It’s hard.” Bucky closes his eyes. “It’s weird. When you say things, it’s hard to,” he flicks his fingers, “ _ Catch _ a color.”

“Really? Does moving your hands help?”

Bucky opens his eyes and laughs. “No! That’s just a thing I do, I guess.” He shoves his hand into his pocket self-consciously and fingers the plum resting there. “Some voices are easy. Your mom’s is brown. Nice brown. It’s like the color of dirt, but the good dirt that plants can grow in. Warm-ish brown. My mom’s voice is a more goldish brown, but her voice is sharper. Sometimes the colors stab.” 

He winces. “I hate orange voices. In my head, it looks like they’re shouting.”

“I’m sorry,” says Steve. “That doesn’t sound nice.”

“Eh. I’m alrigh’. Don’t ever worry about me, ’kay?” 

He shifts his weight, feeling cold again. Steve settles back down on one of the maple’s roots. 

Bucky drops down next to him, letting their shoulders touch again. Following some strange instinct he’s too young to understand or hate, he kisses Steve gently on the cheek and then scoots a tiny bit away.

“Hey, why’d you do that, Buck?” Steve smiles and rubs his cheek where Bucky’s small lips landed.

Bucky shrugs. He doesn’t really know, but he doesn’t regret it. “Easter’s about love; that’s what your mom said. So that means all love. Jesus love and friend love, too.”

“Jesus love?”

“Hey! I ain’t no Christian!”

Steve laughs again and Bucky mouths the word “Yellow,” to himself. He stores the information somewhere in his mind where he tells himself he won’t forget it. The sun is yellow. The sound of rustling leaves is yellow. Steve’s hair is yellow. So is his laugh.

When Sarah finds the two children, after the service has ended, they’re sitting on a tree root, looking at the stars. Their shirts are a mess and Steve’s hair that she carefully combed is sticking up in multiple cowlicks from the top of his head. But they look so happy. As she watches, Bucky playfully punches Steve in the arm as Steve laughs. The sound carries over to her and she watches as Steve punches Bucky back, lightly, and hugs him around the middle.

She drops her eyes to the ground and suppresses her irritation. They don’t have many nice shirts, it’s true, but children are children. And Easter is for forgiveness, after all.

She climbs the hill, tucking a bouquet of flowers more firmly under her arm, and hands each child a chocolate egg that Mrs. Coleman, the milkman’s wife, created and decorated. Bucky immediately shoves his face into his, getting chocolate all over his mouth, but Steve holds the egg in his hands until his mother urges him to eat. 

“This is delicious,” Bucky declares with his mouth full. Sarah laughs. 

“Go tell Mrs. Coleman you think so! And, really, we should get home. I’m sure your parents are worried about you, James.”

It’s a lie, and she feels bad, because it’s a holy day. James’s mother probably didn’t even notice her child’s extended absence, and his father is probably still deep in his drinking. Still, she can’t bear to have James know that, and she dreads the day when he will realize that the way his parents treat him isn’t normal or kind. She’s practically adopted him as a child of her own in an effort to spare him, but every time the young boy cringes at a touch or flinches at a raised voice, she feels a tiny dagger in her heart.

“I don’t wanna go,” whines Steve, seizing to his mother’s shirtsleeve. “Can Bucky stay the night with us? Please?”

“It’s so late, Steve,” sighs Sarah. “Maybe later?”

“Please?” Bucky reaches out to her and gives her a light hug. Sarah inhales slightly; it’s the first physical affection Bucky has shown her. He’s called her “mom” mistakenly several times, but he’s never voluntarily touched her.

Maybe that’s why she says yes.

“Alright, James.” She brushes a hand down his shirtfront and gives him her handkerchief to wipe the chocolate from his mouth. “Just tonight, though. But first you have to tell Mrs. Coleman how much you liked the Easter egg. Both of you.”

“Okay!” calls Bucky cheerfully. He’s already halfway down the hill, with Steve stumbling after him. 

“Wait for me, Buck!” he calls. He hops over a rock but keeps going, and Sarah wishes again that she could afford shoes that fit him. The newspapers and rags she’s stuffed in the toes can’t be comfortable, but Steve has never complained.

The children, (both chocolate-mouthed, despite her attentions) traipse in the church door as if they don’t have a care in the world, and she smiles after them before turning back toward the tree. Just past it and on the other side of the hill, wrapping around its base, is the church graveyard. Her husband is there. Has been, for years. Steve’s never known his father, and maybe it’s for the best. But Sarah can never forget Joseph’s warm smile, wide and bright enough to light up a room. He and Steve don’t look alike, but she can tell Steve inherited a lot from him. His kindness, definitely. His fight, though, was all from her. 

They would have loved each other so much.

Sarah rewraps her shawl and heads past the tree, down into the cemetery. The wrought-iron gate creaks open and she transfers her flowers into her right hand. When she places them down on her Joseph's grave, a tear traces a familiar path next to her nose. He loved spring. She remembers him laughing under maple trees and placing yellow flowers in her auburn hair and hiding eggs for the neighbors’ children under bushes and behind rocks. He loved laughter. He loved Easter. He loved her. And she knows, somehow, that he still does. And that he loves Steve, and even Bucky, as well. Maybe from somewhere far away. But he’s there.

She sniffs and wipes the tear away. “Happy Easter,” she whispers up into the darkening sky. Never being one to linger long in the land of what might have been, though, she dusts the top of the tombstone, pulls up a few weeds, stands, and walks away, hunched against the cold that’s steadily getting sharper.

~

Inside the church, Steve and Bucky beeline for the remains of the banquet and  _ eat _ until they can’t fit any more in their stomachs. Turkey, potato salad, Matzo Ball soup, gingerbread, salad, chicken, brownies, and half each of the one remaining chocolate egg. “Enjoying yourselves?” asks Mrs. Coleman. Bucky swallows and nods frantically. “Thank you so much!” he blurts. “The chocolate eggs are so, so good!”

“They really are!” adds Steve. “They’re my favorite thing I’ve had tonight!”

Mrs. Coleman smiles, pleased, and pinches Steve’s cheek. “Better get home soon, now,” she advises. “You don’t want to catch a cold.”

Steve puts his mouth into a slash. He hates being reminded of his poor health. “Yeah, okay,” he mutters. “Thanks for being worried.”

“Happy Easter,” Bucky chirps up, trying to smooth over the slight awkwardness. 

“And to you, James,” Mrs. Coleman responds warmly.  _ My name is Bucky, not James _ , Bucky thinks, but he just gives Mrs. Coleman another winning smile and licks a tiny bit of chocolate off the corner of his mouth. Mrs. Coleman laughs, tousles his hair, and bustles off towards her husband, taking her now-empty plate with her.

“Ready to go, Steve, James?” asks Sarah, bustling in the side door of the church. Her eyes are faintly red, and Steve immediately knows she must have visited his dad’s grave again.

“Did you tell him Happy Easter?” he asks.

“I did,” his mother replies, taking him into a comforting hug. “He says he loves you  _ very _ much.”

“Thanks you.”

Bucky drops his eyes to the floor as Steve and Sarah embrace. He’s thinking of his dad, of his face red and twisted in anger and his hand flying fast through the air. He’s thinking about the pain, both physical and mental, that his father has caused him, but, looking at Steve, he knows he’s lucky to have a father at all.

“Well,” announces Sarah, after Steve pulls away, “We should really be going.”

She takes her boys by the hands, one on each side of her, and heads toward the front of the building, thanking the pastor profusely on her way out. “You forgot the plate!” Bucky protests, as he’s led away.

“Don’t worry about that,” Sarah says as they head into the night. There’s a bite in her voice; anger.  _ Why? _ Steve wonders.

“There was some potato salad left over, and the pastor always feeds the leftover banquet food to the poor. He needs a plate to keep the potato salad on until it’s all gone, and then he’ll give the plate back to me.”

Steve and Bucky turn to look at the table of food as they’re being led towards the doors of the church. The potato salad looks untouched, and, looking at Sarah’s slightly bitter face, that fact is not lost on her.

Bucky brushes up against her, a second voluntary touch, awkwardly trying to make her feel better. “I think your potato salad is delicious,” he says quietly, attempting to lick the rest of the chocolate from his face.

“Thank you, James.”

 

They walk home, keeping their hands clasped the whole way. Bucky listens to the sounds of the night, feeling peaceful. Maybe it’s the special day it is, maybe it’s the stomach-and-a-half-full food he ate, or maybe it’s Sarah’s comforting affection, but he feels protectively enclosed in a bubble of warmth. The harsh orange of car honks and the metallic grey scraping of construction work nearby don’t hurt his mind as much with Steve and Sarah next to him. So he casts his mind out behind those noises and tries to find a color of the sound the stars and moon make. He can’t quite grasp onto it. Maybe it’s yellow, like Steve’s laugh. And maybe it’s every color in the universe and at the same time no colors at all. Like glass. Like something so precious, so easily shatterable, as this whole night, this whole wonderful blur, has been.

~

“G’night, Buck,” Steve murmurs sleepily, rolling over onto his left side and tucking himself under his covers. After their typical fight over who gets the floor (they each want the other to take the bed), Bucky ended up on the spare mattress and Steve in his bed, as usual. Bucky usually wins the arguments and takes fierce, juvenile pride in his ability to fight with his words as well as his fists. Someone’s gotta protect Steve, after all.

“Good night, Steve,” he replies, blinking his heavy eyes shut and reaching out an arm. He hits on Steve’s wrist, hanging off the side of his bed, and clasps onto it for a moment before dropping his hand back onto his covers and exhaling up towards the ceiling of the room. “Happy Easter, punk.”

Steve doesn’t answer; he’s already asleep. In the sudden silence, Bucky opens his eyes again and watches the light from the moon arrow through a crack in the cheap window blinds, falling down on the headboard of Steve’s bed and halfway across his pillow, and finally ending right on the curve of his soft cheekbone. Bucky digs his fingers into his own pillow, unsettled or hungry for something he can’t quite name.

  
Finally, he rolls over and falls asleep, frowning. His dreams are vivid that night; Steve’s laugh has come to life and is dancing just in front of him, shining and yellow, but always, for some reason, just out of his reach.

**Author's Note:**

> This might be incorporated into a longer work soon, but it's a standalone here for now. I have a lot of feelings about Bucky with synaesthesia, and how he might feel when he realizes that Hydra didn't wipe it away after all, and the colors Steve's voice would have made when he said "Bucky?" on the highway; what if the colors of his voice brought him back as much as the sound of it?
> 
> Bucky’s Matzo Ball soup is inspired by/a reference to [this emotionally devastating piece](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7410154/chapters/16831270).
> 
> I was inspired to write Steve and Buckster as youngsters by [this luminous work](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7867951/chapters/17968255), which also (kind of) has synaesthesia, so that was inspirational, too.
> 
> Incidentally, casting your eyes somewhere else (people tend to follow your eyes rather than your hands; it’s also a magician’s trick) and reaching out for the food as quickly as possible is the best way to steal fruit off a banquet table (and yes, I know from experience).


End file.
